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Needing help in making a PC

Hi again, just me here, I reply here every time I get some new information and here goes:

I recently (today) took quite a risk as I'm not sure if it's good, but I found I had some extra money for my budget and bought this:

AMD ATHLON 64 -3400+ 1M L2 Cache

Is this a good processor, I know orginally I wanted a 64 3200 but I bought it from a US store that said they would declare it at less than I paid for it to avoid the import tax- hope it works out ok.

Can anyone suggest a motherboard that goes with this one- I know a few people have suggested some Athlon 64 motherboards but just checking really if it's a good processor or whether I should have spent my money elsewhere....

thanks,

Nick
 
Nothing wrong with the 3400 that I'm aware of; it's a very fast processor. As far as socket 754 motherboard reviews are concerned Google is your friend. You might also want to take a look at this ebuyer page - http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...n=c2hvd3N1YmNhdGVnb3J5X3BhZ2U=&subcat_uid=557 - which has some 754 boards together with user reviews and popularity (should point you in the right direction). :)

P.S. Just out of interest could you PM (personal message) me with the name of the U.S. retailer you bought the processor from.
 
nicholas3000 said:
Hi again, just me here, I reply here every time I get some new information and here goes:

I recently (today) took quite a risk as I'm not sure if it's good, but I found I had some extra money for my budget and bought this:

AMD ATHLON 64 -3400+ 1M L2 Cache

Is this a good processor, I know orginally I wanted a 64 3200 but I bought it from a US store that said they would declare it at less than I paid for it to avoid the import tax- hope it works out ok.

Can anyone suggest a motherboard that goes with this one- I know a few people have suggested some Athlon 64 motherboards but just checking really if it's a good processor or whether I should have spent my money elsewhere....

thanks,

Nick


You chances of avoiding Taxes, Duty , handling charges & P&P is close to zero. You are likely to face a hefty increase when it arrives.

Given that you stated your Budget was no more then £500 the AMD Athlon 64 does not seem a good choice as you will have to skimp else where to stay within that budget. Motherboards for the 64's are not cheap
 
Web Buddy said:
You chances of avoiding Taxes, Duty , handling charges & P&P is close to zero. You are likely to face a hefty increase when it arrives.

I have bought loads of stuff online from abroad and have never been stiffed for the additional tax, and several people I know have the same experience. The chances of it getting through are reasonably good, though there is obviously some risk.
 
well I hope you are wrong Web Buddy :crap: and when I look at motherboards they are about average price, I'm looking at getting this one:

ASUS K8V SE Deluxe

Will this one work ok with the radeon 128MB pro, athlon 64 3400, average 160GB hard drive and from Crucial 2x 512MB, 184-pin DIMM?

thanks :)

Nick
 
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Hi, thanks for the places I can look, I have received my item and thankfully wasn't overcharged a penny :)
Now, I am looking at getting the Asus K8V/SE Deluxe S754 VIA k8t800 ATX Sound Gig lAN Firewire USB 2.0 FSB 800 Retail Box which apparently will work ok- I hope...

Think I've found someone that will help build it as well :D

Nick
 
Good luck for your new PC. They are not that hard to build, its just the software side most people fear!

I gotta say your budget must have gone up a fair bit! :drool:
 
Not a great deal, I bought the processor for about £130 which in itself is a great deal seeing on dabs it's £270 and so I weighed up the cost of paying that bit more and thought it worked out as the right thing to do.....the software is so boring to load up. I have done that aspect before, it takes so long, hopefully be faster on my new comp still. Is the graphics card that I am thinking of getting still ok to go with the processor or is that the thing now letting it down now?

thanks :)

Nick
 
The windows install wont be much faster at all, as all the drivers for your lovely new stuff wont be in, which makes it go fast.

As for the graphics card, which one was it? You said radeon 128mb pro. Im assuming its a 9800, if so, thats fine.

The X800's (next step up) are far too overpriced at the moment and havent got the best drivers out yet, so your much better off waiting.

Oh, and if your playing games a lot then I really do recommend a good 5.1 surround sound speaker set (your motherboard will support it).
 
Right, I'm puting my order in on sunday to dabs.com for these components, I have stepped up the budget considerable but this is a list of things:

still the Athlon 64 3400
Motherboard: Abit Kv8 Max 3 @ £70
Hard drive: 2x Seagate 80 GB SATA drives @ £46 each
Graphics: Dabs value 9800XT 256MB @ £191
RAM: Corsair 2x512MB matched pair Tx1024-3200CZPT (to be precise) @ around £170

and the case is a thermaltake xaser III @ £51.99
PSU Enermax 360 W @ £50

Thing is, my processor didn't come with a heatsink, anyone recommend one that works with that?

Also can anyone recommend something they would change to make it even better?

thanks :)

Nick
 
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nicholas3000 said:
still the Athlon 64 3400

...

RAM: Corsair 2x512MB matched pair Tx1024-3200CZPT (to be precise) @ around £170

...

Thing is, my processor didn't come with a heatsink, anyone recommend one that works with that?

I'm not sure that it's worth spending extra on a matched pair of memory banks since the 3400 is not dual channel. As far as the heatsink goes mine came with the fan (Venus 12) together with the thermal paste. :)
 
I bet you would Butler :p , I hope it's fast enough the processor to play every game out there for a couple of years at least. Particularly Doom 3, although Farcry looks actually more stunning from the screenshots :)

Nick (still looking for a good heatsink fan :p )
 
Last edited:
Bob2002 said:
I'm not sure that it's worth spending extra on a matched pair of memory banks since the 3400 is not dual channel. As far as the heatsink goes mine came with the fan (Venus 12) together with the thermal paste. :)

Thanks :) I'll have a look on the dabs site now to see how much th venus 12 fan costs, hope it isn't too much more :s
 
... Save yourself (£50-£60) by dropping the dual channel RAM - which only works at top speed with dual channel memory controllers, which the 3400 doesn't have. :confused:
 
Last edited:
£14.46 excluding VAT. I'm not sure if I need the paste as a friend is building it for me and might have it. Quite expensive I think, is it a quiet fan though?
 
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Bob2002 said:
... Save yourself (£50-£60) by dropping the dual channel RAM - which only works at top speed with dual channel memory controllers, which the 3400 doesn't have. :confused:

Oh, I wonder why my friend who gave me some specs suggested that, which processors have this dual channel memory controllers, I doubt this has anything to do with it and I'm showing my knowledge of knowing nothing but does the L2 cache have anything to do with it on the processor?
 
nicholas3000 said:
£14.46 excluding VAT. I'm not sure if I need the paste as a friend is building it for me and might have it. Quite expensive I think, is it a quiet fan though?

I'm not an expert with fans but they seem fairly quiet to me (I have two of them in the box beside me). They come with three ways of controlling the speed -

a) Connect directly to a power lead and run at full speed - sounds like a hair-dryer at full speed i.e. noisy
b) Connect one of the included speed controller dials - this is what I used and you just reduce the revs until the noise is acceptable.
c) Use one of the included thermal speed controllers - I didn't bother with this as it looked slightly messy.

:)
 
Bob2002 said:
I'm not an expert with fans but they seem fairly quiet to me (I have two of them in the box beside me). They come with three ways of controlling the speed -

a) Connect directly to a power lead and run at full speed - sounds like a hair-dryer at full speed i.e. noisy
b) Connect one of the included speed controller dials - this is what I used and you just reduce the revs until the noise is acceptable.
c) Use one of the included thermal speed controllers - I didn't bother with this as it looked slightly messy.

:)

I'm right in saying I only need to buy one fan though aren't I? :)
Now, with my current PC it sounds so noisy, it's so annoying to hear it whirring. I think I kinda expect a noisy PC as everything is getting more powerful and hotter...plus there's a lot of dust in my machine so it's probably just being a hoover!

thanks for your help and advice though :D
 
nicholas3000 said:
Oh, I wonder why my friend who gave me some specs suggested that, which processors have this dual channel memory controllers ...

The AMD 64 processors with dual channel are -

a) Socket 939 series.
b) FX series.
c) Opteron series.

:shrug:
 
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